HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
nature, which, without this instrument, must ever have remained in 
obscurity ; by its assistance botanists studied the internal structure 
of vegetables; they described the heart, wood, and pith; they per- 
ceived the newly formed bud, yet invisible to the naked eye; the 
future plant existing in the bulbous roots, and even in the seed; pores 
were discovered, which were found to be the organs of the expira- 
tion and inspiration of gases, thrown out as noxious, or inhaled as 
nutritious.* The importance of the stamen and pistils as essential 
to the perfection of the seed of vegetables began to be suspected. 
As yet, however, the science of Botany lay in scattered fragments 
of various imperfect and contending systems ; much labour had ' 
been bestowed, and great improvements made, but there was no 
central point around which these improvements might be collected. 
The learned world were sensible of the deficiency ; but it required 
genius, great observation of nature, and courage to stem the tide of 
popular prejudices, in him who should come forward to attempt the 
work of reform. 
Charles Von Linnaeus, an inhabitant of Sweden, suddenly emerg- 
ing from obscurity, offered to the world a system of Botany, so far 
superior to all others, as to leave no room for dispute as to its com- 
parative merit. All preceding systems vv'ere immediately laid aside, 
and the classification of Linnaeus was received with scarcely a dis- 
senting voice. What this system w^as, you have not now to learn, 
since it w^as the alphabet of your botanical studies. Linnaeus ex- 
tended the principles of his classification to the animal and mineral 
kingdom; in the language of an eminent botanist,t " His magic pen 
turned the wilds of Lapland into fairy fields, and the animals ot 
Sweden came to be classed by him as they went to Adam in the 
garden of Eden to receive each his particular name." 
LECTURE XLV. 
HISTORY OF BaTANY FROM THE TIME OF LINNiEUS TO THE PRESENT. 
LiNNiEus was born in 1707; his father was a clergyman, and had 
designed his son for the same sacred office ; but seeing him leave 
his studies to gather flowers, he inferred that he possessed a weak 
and trifling mind, unfit for close investigation; he was about to put 
him to a mechanical employment, when some discerning persons 
perceiving in his devotion to the works of nature the germ of a great 
and lofty mind, placed him in a situation favourable to the develop- 
ment of his peculiar talents, where he was allowed, without restraint, 
to study the book of nature, 
" This elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand." 
Linnaeus formed anew the language of botanical science ; every 
organ of the plant he defined with precision, and gave it an appro» 
priate name ; every important modification was designated by a 
particular term. Thus comparisons became easy, and confusion 
was avoided. The characters of plants appeared in a new light. 
Each species took, besides the name of the genus to which it belonged, 
a specific name which recalled some peculiarity distinctive of the 
* Leuwenhoek, Grew, Malpighi, and Camerarius, are among the first of the mod- 
erns who investigated the internal structure of vegetables, 
t Sir James E. Smith. 
Science of botany yet imperfect— Linnaeus— Birth of Linnaeus, &e.— What were 
the improvements made by Linnaeus'? 
